Hate speech, insults and calls for violence
Hate speech is defined as expressions used with the purpose of humiliating, intimidating, using or encouraging violence, forming a prejudiced attitude against a person or a group based on gender, race, ethnic or national origin, religious beliefs, political affiliation or any physical characteristics, and so on. Hate speech is “the starting point of the process leading to hate crimes, that is, an outward manifestation of intolerance that opens the gateway to hate crimes”. Recently, there has been an increasing number of cases when people who have left their country and moved abroad for various reasons target political groups in their homeland, pouring insults on them, engaging in hate speech and calling on citizens of their country to resort to violence (disturbance of public order, security threats).
Given the serious concerns about the spread of hate speech against political groups in Europe, it is no coincidence that the Congress of Local and Regional Administrations of the Council of Europe decided on December 3, 2021, to present recommendations in March 2022 for preventing and fighting fake news and hate speech with the aim of further developing the action plan for European democracy.[1] Thus, spreading and supporting hate speech means undermining the values that Europe itself advocates. According to a report presented by AfD, hate speech resulted in 1,534 hate crimes against politicians in Germany in one year alone (in 2020), a 9% increase on the previous year.[2]
Similar situations have been observed in other European countries. For example, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is concerned that in Switzerland, this “heaven on earth”, hate speech of this kind is getting increasingly common to the point of becoming a threat to human rights.[3] There are special “human rights” groups and projects engaged in cybercrime and espionage[4] that serve as a catalyst for the spread of hate speech, and it is their false “reports” that can be considered an important factor in this matter.
Ironically, this is the kind of documents the “foul-mouthed opposition” engaging in hate speech against Azerbaijan and its political authorities chooses to focus on, getting financial assistance from Armenian networks directly involved in their drafting, and doing its best to demoralize the Azerbaijani people. By supporting such individuals, European states face the undermining of their values, and the question arises as to what extent they can fight it and put an end to it.
Penalties for hate speech, profanity, and insults used in Europe
Human rights conventions both worldwide and in Europe protect and guarantee freedom of speech. But each of these conventions contains a serious caveat: freedom of speech must not lead to the promotion of hate speech, insults, slander and discrimination among people.
While condemning discrimination, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and Articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also emphasize the unacceptability of hate speech.[5]
The judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in relevant court cases can be taken as a benchmark in this regard. For example, after the decision to shut down an Internet news portal in Estonia in 2013 for disseminating hate speech and offensive comments, the director of the portal filed a complaint with the ECtHR, claiming that the judgment violated Article 10 of the ECHR (“Freedom of speech”). The ECtHR ruled that the judgment stood, because the comments on the portal were extremely hateful and offensive, and the portal had failed to stop them, even though it could have done.[6]
It is also worth mentioning here Recommendation No. R97(20) of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to Member States “On Hate Speech” (October 30, 1997), Manual on Hate Speech by the Council of Europe Publications in Strasbourg (2009), the speech of Dean Spielmann, President of the ECtHR, “Development of Political Radicalism in Europe: Our Response?” in 2013 (Strasbourg, Council of Europe, June 24, 2013), the most recent speech of this kind by Congress President Leendert Verbeek at the Congress of Local and Regional Administrations of the Council of Europe in December 2021, and so on.
Similar laws exist in Azerbaijan as well: Article 57 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan[7], Article 148 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan[8], Article 594(2) of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Azerbaijan[9], Article 13(2.3) of the Law on Information, Informatization and Information Protection[10], and finally Article 14(1.9) of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Media[11] adopted on 30 December 2021 prohibit the use in the mass media of offensive and slanderous information aimed at propaganda of violence and cruelty, national, racial, social injustice or intolerance and lay down respective penalties.
An open address to the Azerbaijani foul-mouthed emigrant opposition and their supporters
It is with regret that we have to say that some Azerbaijanis currently living in emigration or well-known personalities calling themselves members of the opposition—Muhammad Mirzali, Suleyman Suleymanly, Gabil Mammadov, Manaf Jalilzadeh, Elshad Mammadov and the like—received grants from local and international European organizations, especially Armenian organizations, under the banner of “opposition activities” against Azerbaijan, while actually focusing all their activities on cussing out, insulting the authorities of Azerbaijan and spreading hate speech against the political authorities, insulting and debasing the national spiritual and historical values of Azerbaijan and even undermining the values Europe protects. The above-mentioned persons and others like them claim to be allegedly saving the Azerbaijani people, while they do nothing but insult the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and members of his family.
Those spreading this hate speech have admitted themselves that they have no national and spiritual ties with Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani people, and that their real goal is to get grants from Europe, especially from Armenian organizations that support them.[12] The Armenian involvement in the preparation of the “4P” documents (Panama, Paradise, Pegasus and Pandora) and the Armenian lobby being behind them, as well as their support for the “foul-mouthed opposition” against Azerbaijan, are all facts. No wonder Armenian scientist Artyom Tonoyan, who lives in America, tweeted after the Panama Papers were leaked: “Until Aliyev is gone from power. Then we start from zero. Again.” Especially striking is the number of Armenians who participated in the preparation of the latest Pandora Papers. One of the 3 leaders, member of the Board of Directors of ICIJ, which published this document, is Alexander Papachristou, of Armenian descent. His last name may not look Armenian at first glance, but he was one of the presidents of the Near East Foundation (whose first president was the US Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau), one of the oldest and richest foundations established by the Armenians against the Ottomans in 1915. Muhammad Mirzali, who is currently conducting aggressive information attacks against Azerbaijan from abroad, is under the wing of Amal Clooney, of Armenian descent. One of the main sponsors of the media smear campaign against Azerbaijan is French billionaire Pierre Omidyar, an Armenian of Iranian origin. He is one of the main sponsors of Reporters Without Borders, an organization that constantly criticizes Azerbaijan. It is only natural that this organization, which protects journalists, would issue a statement saying: “M. Mirzali is under the protection of France. If anything happens to him, the Azerbaijani leadership will be held personally responsible”. Interestingly, they did not even mention the 16 journalists killed during the NATO attack on the Yugoslav TV channel, or our two journalists killed in a landmine explosion in the liberated Kalbajar. Journalist Jose Manzaneda called them “reporters without moral borders”. There is a reason why journalists of this organization usually focus on the countries the United States tells them to focus on and turn a blind eye to such countries as Saudi Arabia, the Philippines.
So, each of said persons, having settled in different European countries, spews obscenities, insults, slander against Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis from there and gets no punishment. They spread hate speech and go unpunished. They insult Azerbaijani government officials and their family members, and make threats of a sexual nature. They insult not only Azerbaijani politicians, but even gender values, which Europe is especially trying to protect. For example, Manaf Jalilzadeh’s hate speech[13] against Tolik, a representative of Azerbaijan’s LGBT community, on the YouTube channel Dictator TV, which he started with European grants, is one of the most ironic proofs of this. Another proof: one of their biggest YouTube channels, Azad Söz (“Free Word”), is regularly shut down because of the hate speech spread by this “foul-mouthed opposition”—only to be reopened thanks to foreign financial support (the latest shutdown was on February 23, 2022).
People engaging in such hate speech should by no means be called the opposition. It is not even correct to call them “foul-mouthed opposition”. Because real opposition cannot be like that. To refer to a force whose only weapon, slogan, and ideology is swearing as the opposition would mean taking them seriously and glorifying them. There is one name for these people: terrorists. What they are doing is political terrorism. The hate speech, obscenities, and insults spread by these people also bring about violence. The swearing begins to turn into a political image that tries to impose the idea of tomorrow. Where there is swearing and violence, politics ends. The language of politics and diplomacy is chosen so that not everything is solved by violence and swearing. These people are nothing but political terrorists. Terrorists at their core. They have all the telltale signs and attributes of terrorists.
But why does Europe keep supporting all these people?! Isn’t that a policy of moral terror, discrimination against us by the states that support these people? Clearly, by using these foul mouths for their own purposes, Western states are trying to keep Azerbaijan exposed to threats and are pursuing a policy of “new imperialism”.
[1] https://cor.europa.eu/en/news/Pages/hate-speech-against-local-politicians-has-worsened-significantly.aspx
[2] https://www.dw.com/en/germany-hate-speech-threats-against-politicians-rise/a-56512214
[3] https://www.expatica.com/ch/politics/sw-un-body-concerned-at-rise-of-racist-hate-speech-in-switzerland-226436/
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/business/credit-suisse-leak-swiss-bank.html
[5] https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/ICCPR/Santiago/TobyMendel.pdf
[6] https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/FS_Hate_speech_ENG.pdf
[7] http://www.e-qanun.az/framework/897
[8] http://e-qanun.az/framework/46947
[9] http://e-qanun.az/framework/46960
[10] http://www.e-qanun.az/framework/3525
[11] http://www.e-qanun.az/framework/49124
[12] https://demokratik.az/xeberler/siyaset/18671-avropadaki-muhacir-bloggerler-bir-birine-savash-achdi-azad-sozun-youtube-kanali-baglandi.html
